Jigoku Games Round Three: Bug Queen vs. Water Scorpion
Scorpius was walking to the designated area for the match, already starting to sweat in the early morning sun. "Living in a more forest-y area doesn't help much here..." he said to himself. As he arrived, he sat down under a naturally formed arch, trying to avoid the sun. "I hope she gets here soon. The longer we are out here, the shorter the fight will be due to the heat." Sliding down from the sandy hills came a woman, clad in thick clothes, covering her whole body. As she slid downwards she took notice of a young man standing a little way in front of her. "That has to be him." She spoke with a muffled voice. Her legs flashed brightly and she made a jump. She flew the distance that was between the two of them and landed with a satifying sound beneath her feet. Her legs flashed once more upon landing and she stood right up. "Ello there, fella. Are you the man that I am searching for?" Scorpius watched as the woman landed calmly. "Nice jumping skills. I believe so. Are you Satura?" Scorpius said as he stood up to shake her hand. "The name is Scorpius. Nice to meet you. Ready to have some fun? Where would you like to start?" "Indeed. Satura is the name and hunting bugs is my game. Sorry if it took a while to get here, I was practicing for a bit on how to properly move around on these grounds." she said as she kicked some sand up. "But, yeah, this should be fun and I think we shoul dhave our fight right... HERE!" Quick as a flash had she transformed into a giant centipede which began to run at extreme speeds in a circle, building up momentum. As quick as it had begun it's running she proceeded to go for a head on tackle. "Not so fast" Scorpius said as he flooded the space between him and her with water, causing the ground to become muddy and much harder to move in. Scorpius then pulled his staff Vainglorius off of his back and pointed towards the bug. "Spike fall." Scorpius said as spikes of water fired from the tip of the staff and hardened, aimed towards the body of the bug. He then jumped up and onto the naturally formed arch he sat under earlier. Satura veered to the side in an attempt to avoid to water to the best of her ability. As the spike of hardened liquid approached her, they battered against her, slamming into her armored body, leaving little more than scratches on her chithin. Deciding to avoid conflict for the moment, she continued to run around and around in her little circle, building up her momentum and preparing for the right moment to strike. "Tough skin, huh?" Scorpius sighed, and sat down on the arch. "Are you hot at all? I'm thinking we need some rain." The staff began to glow in Scorpius' hands. Clouds started to form quickly above them, thunderclaps began to be heard. Rain started to fall in a deluge, covering all the sand in the area, making it nice and muddy. The hills started to have sluices of water down the sides, making it difficult to find a foothold. "That's better." Scorpius said. "Now how to cause damage. Oh yea. Scattershot." bits of the rain started floating in the air, and then shot towards the centipede at the speed of a barrage of the bullets. The bullets of water hammered down on Satura's armor, but it still did little to actually impact or even bother her. As the ground around her became less and less stable and trustworthy, her momentum buildup got halted, and to some extent, even slowed her down. But as a centipede, she could travel across nearly any surface, and this was no different. She turned her attention back towards Scorpius as she rushed forward for another tackle. Scorpius did not move from his spot. He pointed the staff at the centipede. "Water spout." He said, causing a spinning pillar of water to pick up the centipede and push it into the air. The water pressure dropped allowing Sakura to drop into a free fall. As Satura plummeted towards the ground, somewhere, deep in her mind, did she come to the conclusion that Leghul just wasn't doing the trick. Perhaps a change of strategy would pay off. Or the lack thereof. She reverted back to her human form and brought her hands together. Her whole body shone with a pristine light as she transformed once more. "Insect Soul: Mathayus!" She cried out, and barely had the words left her mouth when she transformed into the colossal black Scorpion. She landed with a heavy thud, sinking partially into the ground, yet Satura seemed unaffected. Without uttering a word, for she was incapable of such now, she reeled her right claw back and thrust it forward in a powerful punch. Scorpius looked at the new transformation with a grimace. He put the staff back and grabbed his broadsword Leviathan. He deflected the punch with the sword as Scorpius sidestepped the attack and jumped towards the body portion of the scorpion. Scorpius jumped to the side if the bug, and fired cannonsballs of water towards it's face to disorient her. The canonballs made contact with her facial features, dealing what would have been truly tremendous damage to the ordinary person, proved to do only so little against her obsidian carapace. Satura turned her attention towards Scorpius once more, this time directing her tail towards him and making a powerful jab with it. Scorpius noticed the stinger coming towards him. He turned toward it hit it with Leviathan, rattling his arms due to it's armor, but by doing so deflected the attack by moving himself and the stinger into different paths. "This soul of yours has some powerful armor. But even armor can have chinks in it." At this point Scorpius was right next to one of the six legs of the soul. He placed his hand right at the intersection of a joint, and knowing that the armor must have some sort of soft spot there, he said "Water Cannon!" firing a volley of smaller attacks than before, but with the same intensity into the crevice of the joint. He then jumped away out of range of any counter attack. To assume that the joints would be a weak spot was a fair assessment, which Satura would have to give him credit for if she wasn't too much of a moron at this point to think beyond her basic instincts. Satura took the blow that came from the water spell. The damage it dealt was a lot more impressive this time around, due to he more sensitive spot of impact. Despite that, the spell was not enough to cause any crippling damage or any of the sort. She turned herself around slightly more and directed her golden eye towards scorpius, firing a great ray of corrosive light. Scorpius kneeled to the ground and from his forearm he created a black water shield that covered his whole body, protecting him. The light was seemingly absorbed by the water. Scorpius stood up and smiled wickedly. "Corrosive magic? Sweet. I hope you have protection against it yourself." Scorpius said as he fired the light back at the scorpion from his Black Water. He then with his other hand made a gun shape, firing bullets of water at an extreme velocity towards the eyes of his opponent. Satura started to run towards Scorpius, raising her claws in front of her face for extra protection. The light and bullets of water made contact with her claws, with only one bullet or two slipping past and causing minor damages to other ares of her body. The light did not do much to affect her, as most of it's power comes from the "physical" punch it delivers and the corrosive properties. With Mathayus excessive endurance and magical protection, the light did very little to affect her with the punch and the corrosive attributes was near instantly neutralized. After the threat was over with, Satura directed her scorpion tail towards Scorpius and launched it's powerful stinger towards him. Scorpius glowed with his blue and black aura before jumping out of the way with his palm facing the stinger. He caused the stinger to not attack as far as Satura planned, and aimed for right in from of her face, hitting the muddy sand with a splash. "Sorry. I don't like controlling others, but it seems the only way to break your exoskeleton would be for me have you hit yourself. Want to make this fight more interesting, or do I have to make you destroy yourself?" he said with a dissapointed look. Those words infuriated Satura to no end. She transformed back to her original form. "Want to make this fight more interesting?" ''she thought. "Am I not entertaining enough?! Am I so lacking that you want to up the interest?! You want interesting?! I'll give you interesting!" she cried out and slammed her hands together. "'INSECT SOUL: KHEPRI!" Her whole body started to flash white, radiating bright light as she took on her next form. Her ultimate form. The air shivered with the sudden release of power and the ground started to shift with the sudden change of weight. The source of the glow grew bigger and bigger and bigger to the point where the form towered higher than the wizard saint Makarov at maximum size. The light faded, revealing a gargantuan Herculean Beetle with a golden carapace and giant horns. "'''ARE YOU ENTERTAINED YET!?" She cried out, her voice now deep and gravely. Fast as lightning did she bring her colossal claw down for a cut towards Scorpius. Scorpius frowned as he turned to water and melted as the claw came down. Scorpius' water form slithered away as he watched Satura. He reformed on top of a boulder nearby, allowing a buffer from Khepri. "Wow, that's a large amount of magic. What all can you do with this?" Scorpius asked with a smile, hoping for a show. He had put his sword and staff away and was just standing with his arms crossed. Before scorpius had as much as the chance to finish his sentence was her claws already on the trajectory to strike him once more. "Insolent wretch! Don't you dare think so little of me!" she cried out. Scorpius' flashed his aura again, taking control of her claw, causing it to strike the boulder he was on, shattering it causing Scorpius to have to jump off balance to the ground, with a bit of sweat on his brow. "I never said I thought little of you! I was just bored of attack a scorpion. This is much more interesting. Whirlpool." Scorpius said as a Whirlpool of water picked up Khepri and swirled her around when he placed his staff to the ground. Scorpius being in the middle of the whirlpool called up to Khepri, "Why are you so mad anyways? Weren't you getting bored as well? At least this way we can try and actually hit each other. Now, let's go. Water Spout." The whirlpool collapsed on itself into a more focused vortex of spiraling water, shooting Satura in her Khepri form into the air, then turning to have her be brought down to the ground faster than what her terminal velocity would have been. Satura was flung down into the ground, sending mighty quakes across the ground upon impact. For a short while, Satura lay immobile. A light shone around her and her frame grew smaller and smaller. Any ordinary mage would expect her to change out of her form when they see this, but if Scorpius is even half the mage she believes him to be, then he would know better. When the light had shrunk to about human size, Satura flew forward towards Scorpius like a blur, lightning crackling around her four claws as she approached Scorpius for yet another strike, this time vastly enhanced with lightning. Scorpius stood there panting, watching Satura change again, but he got a feeling that she wasn't changing back to human. As she jumped towards him quickly and sparking with energy, Scorpius took out Leviathan again and swung towards her jumping body with water extending from his blade to hit her from farther away. As he hit her to knock her out of the way electricity travelled down the water to the blade and down Scorpius' body to the ground. Scorpius winced as he felt the familiar sting of lightning. He stumbled for a moment. "Should have changed to my water form. Now my clothes are singed." He said to himself as Scorpius looking towards Satura. He took a shaky breath and created a small layer of water around him as he sprinted towards her continually for a few moments for a volley of quick strikes, hitting anything that looked soft to his eyes. He stopped after a minute and put away the sword, saying "That lightning is stronger than I thought. It's locking my muscles up a bit." Satura raised her claws and blocked most of the strikes that was delivered to her, yet she underestimated Scorpius astounding speed as a total of three strikes slipped past her claws, dealing some slight damage to her carapace due to her shrinking down in size. Had she been in her maxiumum size, uch an attack would't even be able to compare to a mosquito bite. Witnessing that Scorpius put aside his sword, she saw her moment to strike. She charged forward at him, head first her giant golden horns reaching to end this fight once and for all. Scorpius grinned as he saw Satura charge. "Full on charge huh? I guess defense is my only option." he said to himself as he melted down to his water form before Satura struck. He reformed next to her, with a tired look in his eyes from the heat. "Water Spout" he said one last time as a tower of water pushed Satura away. The water fell as Scorpius changed his tactic. "It seems that you more suited for this climate than I am. Either way, drowning will still slow you down enough for me to recover a bit." Scorpius said as he held out his fist in his Simulated Drowning attack, trying to cause Satura to slow down as the air around her started to turn more into the consistency of water to someone's lungs.